


sleep, my young love

by kurapikano



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Death, Gen, POV Second Person, Songfic, The Kurta Clan Massacre (Hunter X Hunter), baby kurapika, enby kurapika, lullaby incorporated, not mentioned but i want to say it, read tw/cw, this is very sad im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28090212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurapikano/pseuds/kurapikano
Summary: Children's hands are not for digging graves.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	sleep, my young love

**Author's Note:**

> this could be considered a sequel to my work "how rare and beautiful", but you needn't read it first before this.
> 
> this fic is heavily based off of icelandic lullaby "sofðu unga ástin mín", where the lyrics of the kurta lullaby are from. of course, it is not actually kurta for this reason, but in the fic it is.
> 
> TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> \- blood/gore  
> \- death  
> \- second person pov  
> \- body horror  
> \- somewhat suicidal ideation, briefly  
> \- survivor's guilt  
> \- child death
> 
> read with caution in mind if those may bother you, or click away. if not, enjoy! ❤️

You're too young to be doing all this, probably, and you're too young to feel this numb, certainly.

Little hands — your little hands — grasp almost aimlessly at soil that is cold but charred, the meadows nearly entirely scorched away by the evil people who dared do this to you, to your clan, to your family. You cried for hours, cried until you had nothing left with which to cry, every drop of water seeping from your body. It's been a little bit since the initial event, and you did most of your weeping upon hearing it and on your way here, and, once your eyes, unused to this type of carnage, caught sight of the reddened and blackened remains of what you once called home, you cried again.

This time, though, you had desperately cried into your mother's hair, which didn't feel quite as soft.

You had arrived about six hours after hearing the news, and you're not sure how much time was between the event and the report.

It doesn't matter, though.

You were too late.

An often cheery and peppy child, you have never felt this way before. You feel...nothing, almost, and you dig your small digits into the soil again, tear streaks dried on your youthfully chubby cheeks, brown eyes lacking their usual sparkle.

You're only twelve years old.

Why are you a gravedigger?

This isn't the first one you've dug — no, you've been at it ever since you arrived and ceased sobbing, around noon. Now, it's about four in the morning the next day. Your fingertips are raw and bleeding a little, scuffed with dirt and ash, and your palms ache badly. Your pants are messy at the knees with streaks of dirt and grass stains from where there was any left, and everything hurts horribly, but you can't quit now. Your elbows feel ready to give out, and your shoulders feel like they're going to drop off your body and take your arms in whole with them, but you can't stop.

They all have to rest.

Once this hole is done, you gently shut the eyelids of one of the children you and Pairo had once climbed trees with — that was, up until her mom found out she fell and deemed both of you a little too rowdy.

Really, you were the rowdy one. You had been the reason Pairo was hurt later, after all, and that was why you left — to make it better.

Now, you'd never get to.

You gently lower the body, limp, into the grave, much easier than the adults. They're heavier, but you're too scared to be anything but gentle, a whisper of hands slowly drifting them into their resting place. You can't do more damage to the already desecrated corpses.

As creepy as it sounds, you'd much rather have eyes there to stare back at you before you shut them forever.

Instead, there's hollow indents.

You hate it so much, you could cry again.

Your hands carefully tuck a flower into the girl's hair, like you've done with every other body so far. You're surprised you managed to find enough, in a meadow that took a little walking to find, but you're...thankful.

Not happy. You can't be happy.

You can barely manage to feel thankful.

This is all a curse.

While you're patting soil over the young girl's body, your hoarse voice begins to slip out a lullaby that your mother sings to you.

Or, she used to, anyway.

She, your father, Pairo, and his parents, along with the elder, are still above ground.

There are some people you can't accept are gone yet.

But, maybe, you can sing to the dead a little, and comfort their souls.

_ "Sleep, my young love — outside the rain is weeping." _

You smooth a hand over the top of the soil, moving to the next person.

_ "Mama protects your treasures: an old bone and a round case." _

You glance up at the sky, trying to name the stars the elder taught you.

You can't remember any of them.

You begin to weep again.

_ "We shouldn't stay awake on dim nights." _

—

An hour or so later, you've finally made it to the people you have been dreading having to send off.

Firstly, you glance at the sky again, at the stars that are beginning to fade, tears rolling down your cheeks as you pad over to the elder, that old man you bickered so much with to let you leave.

You recall that he said he didn't actually want you to leave, but you wanted to so bad, and you passed, so he had to allow it.

He had really cared for you, hadn't he?

You crumple to your knees next to him, chest heaving with sobs as you lay on his, which doesn't move an inch. Nonetheless, this is your closure, and you need it badly. You need it horribly.

In between your sobs, you may utter the word for  _ "grandfather",  _ in a tongue only you can speak now.

Maybe he needs a lullaby, maybe all your most beloved do.

_ "There is much that darkness knows," _ you choke out. The next line is hard.

_ "..My mind is heavy." _

Slowly, you sit up, taking a flower from your pocket and beginning to weave the stem through grey hair.

_ "Often I saw black sand, burning the green meadow.." _

You adjust the daisy a little.

_ "In the glacier, cracks rumble deep as death." _

The last word is a little choked, and you decide you can't dig another grave just yet. It hurts too much.

So, your feet carry you to Pairo's parents, who had always been like a second set of them to you. They were such patient, kind people, not unlike their son, and Pairo's dad was incredibly well-versed in knowledge about the outside world and what it held, as well as what it had done to them. You had always found the stories of the outside being evil to be exaggerated, but, now, you know it's true.

You  _ hate  _ the outside world.

Carefully, with sniffles racking you, you begin to braid his mother's long, brown hair into a braid, trying to ignore where fire had scorched the ends off unevenly. While you do, you incorporate the flower. You remember fondly how she used to make you little pancakes when you slept over at Pairo's house, blueberries and raspberries dotted in between chocolate chunks and perfectly measured into quaint circles. The cherry syrup she served with it, as well as the dollops of cream, tied it all together beautifully, and, if you were lucky, his father brought out sifted powdered sugar. You tuck a flower into the man's hair as you recall it.

She was a quiet woman, but sweeter than sugarcane, and you miss her already. She had been like a second mother to you.

Mother; oh, mother.

You do not want to think about what you'll have to do.

You scoot with apprehension over to the body littler than yours lying nearby, skin littered with cuts and burns you don't dare stare at for too long. Curls of brown hair fall delicately around a soft face, youthfulness picked into every feature, from the button nose to chubby cheeks.

You're the same, and it makes knowing the fact that he's long gone even more painful.

Gently, because you are a little older, you cradle the body of your best friend in your arms, one of your little hands brushing stray coils of chestnut locks out of his face.

Pairo's eyes are already shut. You know he probably shut them himself, before he went. He would have accepted it and tried to make peace with it before he went.

You hate it. It breaks your heart.

You cry again, cuddling the boy to your chest.

—

After recalling days of rustling in the leaves and picking berries, you eventually let Pairo go, tucking two flowers in. Your little feet carry you to your parents, and you feel a horrific knot in your throat — you're still crying, but you're about ready to sob, and, the moment you realize you'll never hear your mother's voice again or feel your father's hand ruffle your hair again, you do.

You collapse to the ground between your parents, sandwiched between them as if you're a toddler again, sleeping with them after a bad dream. You clutch your mother's skirt, press your back against your father's side, and sob openly like a wounded animal, like a fawn alone in the forest.

You're terrified. Where will you go? What will you do? You're just a kid, just a child, and there's nothing out there for you anymore, nor do you know what you're doing on your own for good. You could bear being in the outside world alone for a while, but you have no home to return to, and nowhere to be.

What are you going to do?

Your wails echo into the night sky, tearing from your tired (oh, so tired) throat and ravaging your vocal chords like five hundred saws. You want your mother back, you need her hand to comb through your hair while she tries to cheer you up. You need your father to hold you gently and let you scream and sob into his chest like he always would until you calmed enough to take his tranquil words into consideration. You need your family.

You need your life back.

You have nothing besides this burnt down home and these lost loved ones, and your little heart feels torn into a million pieces of flesh and blood. You nearly beg the divine to strike you down, to just let you go with them, because you can't live like this anyway. You're twelve, and you're begging for it all to go away, for your time to be up, because you wish you had stayed.

You can't be alone.

Your shuddering, bloodcurdling cries and pleas make a symphony of sorrow in the empty air, and, before you know it, you're in a coughing fit, ash and soreness combining to make you unable to keep screaming your grievances to the world.

It's all you can do to nestle up to your parents and sing yourself to sleep in a whisper, choked sobs interrupting periodically.

_ "Sleep long, sleep tight — it is best to wake late. Hardships will teach you soon, while day becomes night.." _

You sniffle, curling into fetal position and feeling teardrops bustle on your eyelashes.

_ "That people love, lose, cry, and mourn." _

**Author's Note:**

> why did kurapika sleep near the bodies at the end?, you may be asking. if not, know there is a reason.
> 
> in mi'kmaq culture, one of my tribes, it is traditional that when someone dies, the family sleeps with the coffin for a few days to keep the soul from being lonely before departure and let them rest in peace. the soul traditionally returns to the ancestors after in the circle of reincarnation.


End file.
